Page 5

Her blood painted the bed in slow, reverent strokes. I peeled her apart, layer by layer. Not for pleasure. For penance.

Each scream was a confession. Each twitch, a prayer.

I fed her pain to the room itself, let the shadows drink her guilt.

And then, finally, when she had no more memories left to hide behind, no more lies to curl into, I laid her bones out in the center of the marble floor.

Perfect. Balanced.

One rib for each boy.

Her spine as the fulcrum.

Her skull, split clean down the middle.

I stood over the masterpiece, breath steady, hands dripping crimson and ink-black power.

This wasn’t vengeance.

This was justice.

And I?

I’d never loved my work more.

Her blood stained my gloves, still warm, still pulsing with the lie of life.

Brielle's body slumped against the marble counter, limbs arranged in a calculated mess, just enough disarray to whisper robbery. A shattered table. Ripped drawers. A broken lock on the back door. It would all tell a story.

But not the real one.

I crouched beside her, brushing a strand of blood-matted hair from her cheek. Her eyes, once sharp with ambition, now glassy with the weight of death, stared at nothing. Peaceful, almost. Beautiful in the way silence always was.

From the inside of my coat, I pulled a small, smooth object, a single obsidian scale. Sharp-edged. Polished. Cold.

My signature.

I placed it on the floor beside her outstretched hand, perfectly aligned with her lifeline, like a token to whatever gods might bother collecting her.

Let them think it was a thief. A lover. A debt unpaid.

But the ones who knew?

They’d recognize the judgment.

And understand: The system may let monsters walk. But I didn’t.

Malcolm Deen – The Butcher of Newark.

Malcolm was a butcher.

Not by trade, by thrill.

His butcher shop was a rental unit off a service road in the outskirts. No cameras. No windows. Just hooks, drains, and a freezer that hummed like a lullaby.

Twelve confirmed kills. All teenage boys. Runaways. Foster care ghosts. No one came looking.

Bodies were dumped like roadside litter, limbs mangled, torsos hollowed out. Organs missing.

Harvested like fruit. Each boy was found with their eyes wide open, mouths packed with butcher paper.

Malcolm was quiet. Polite.

He called me “sir” in every meeting, voice even and warm, like we were discussing stocks instead of slaughter.

Never once broke eye contact. Never once blinked. Never once showed remorse.

He wore a pressed shirt, clean fingernails, and always had a pin clipped neatly to his collar. I imagined it once dripping with spleen.

I got him off on a technicality.

The evidence? Mishandled, accidentally defrosted during transfer. The testimonies? All secondhand. The jury? Too shaken to see past the fresh shave and choir-boy charm.

He smiled. Shook my hand with fingers that had once held a scalpel to a child’s liver.

“Thank you,” he said. “You saved my life.”

I smiled back. “Not yet.” I whispered.

Malcolm didn’t know he was prey.

Not yet.

For nine days, I trailed him through cities he didn’t belong in, watched him slip into cheap motels under false names, watched him lie his way into bars with soft-eyed boys he’d buy drinks for, but never let leave.

He didn’t think I’d find him.

Didn’t think the Devil ever came in a suit and tie, whispering Latin under his breath and wearing fangs behind a smirk.

But I wasn’t just tracking him. I was studying him.

How he moved. How he lied. How he breathed when no one else was watching. Because that’s when monsters show their real face.

He was a twitchy bastard. Good at hiding. Better at running.

But no one runs forever.

He slipped into a cabin off a dirt road in upstate Vermont, no power, no water, no neighbors for miles. Just trees, fog, and silence. He thought it was his safe house.

He thought wrong.

I waited until night. I wanted him to get comfortable . Wanted the stench of his sin to soak into the pinewood walls so the spirits could feed off it when I was done.

The shadows obeyed when I called them. Slithered beneath the door. Cracked the floorboards. Slipped through the chimney like smoke with teeth.

I stalked through the woods in silence, every step purposeful, my senses stretched wide like a net. I could smell him through the rain, the rot of old guilt and fresh sweat. Hear the blood moving in his veins. A twitchy, guilty rhythm.

I approached the cabin like a wolf. Silent. Unseen.

The locks didn’t matter. My magic whispered through the keyhole, snapped them open like brittle bone. I stepped inside and the air curdled.

He was asleep on the floor, curled in a fetal ball, clutching a butcher knife like a child with a teddy bear.

Pathetic.

I let the shadows crawl across his chest. Slow. Gentle. Like lovers waking him from a dream.

When he startled awake, I transported us back to his butcher shop. Ironic, I knew.

He sat up too fast. Eyes wide. Pupils blown.

“Wh—who’s there?!”

I said nothing.

Just stepped from the corner where the darkness was thicker, black coat dripping with rain, blood, and judgment.

“Dorian?” he whispered, voice cracking. “W-what the fuck are you, how, how did you find me?”

I smiled. “I never lost you. I just waited until I was hungry enough.”

He lunged for the window.

The shadows struck first.

They hit him like a wave of nails and nightmares, slamming him into the wall, dragging him by the ankle, the spine, the neck. Hoisting him up like a slab of meat.

He fought.

They always do.

But the moment they realized the shadows wanted pain? That’s when the screaming began.

I sealed the door. Warded it shut. The air grew thick, humming with old curses. The flame from a single candle burned black and high. I circled him, watching his panic bloom like bruises beneath his skin.

“What is this?” he choked. “You, you can’t do this!”

“I can ,” I said. “Because the system let you live. The court gave you mercy.”

I stepped closer. The scalpel appeared in my hand like an extension of thought, shadows twisting into steel. Ancient. Starved.

“But I’m not the court. I’m the executioner.”

I let the blade kiss his chest.

From collar to navel, I carved the first line.

He shrieked as blood poured from him like confessions. The shadows slithered into the cut, widening it, licking at the nerves.

“Help me!” he wailed. “Someone, please —”

“No one’s listening,” I whispered. “But the boys you buried? They’re watching.”

I reached inside him. Pulled something soft, something warm and wet. A kidney. Still pulsing.

“This one’s for Aiden. Fifteen. Had braces and a birthmark behind his ear. You took him apart like a fucking science project.”

He sobbed. “I, I was sick.”

“You were starving,” I corrected, holding up another organ. “And now you’ll know what it feels like to be devoured .”

The shadows pinned his limbs like crucifixion nails. Ripped fingernails from bone. Peeled flesh from muscle like silk off fruit.

I gutted him slow.

Surgical.

Magical.

Every scream was a song. Every artery a thread in a tapestry of guilt.

When I tore his heart free, I didn’t drop it. I let it beat in my palm. Once. Twice. A stuttering apology.

Then I crushed it. Turned it to dust and fed it to the shadows.

They devoured his body next. Inch by inch. Until nothing remained but bloodstains and bones arranged in the shape of justice on the floor.

The butcher shop burned behind me, black smoke curling into the sky like a god being summoned.

But no gods answered.

Only me.

And I wasn’t done yet.

Before I left, I knelt in the ash. Pulled a single obsidian scale from my coat pocket, flawless, cold, and sharp as judgment. I placed it on the scorched remains.

My signature.

One black scale.

Left for the world like a whisper. A promise.

Justice had a name.

And it was mine.

I returned home to an empty mansion deep in the woods. I opened a locked cabinet. Inside were mementos, rings, teeth, stained scraps of silk, a child's locket.

Each one whispered.

Each one screamed .

I poured myself a drink. Then I looked out, thanks to my impeccable vampire sight, I could see the city, watching, waiting… Until my phone buzzed with a new case.

A new client.

A very guilty one.